Related Breaking News

Price Hanna Consultants LLC, a management consulting firm whose principals have specialized in the nonwoven products, hygiene absorbent products and related fields for nearly 30 years, has published a new report that provides comprehensive global and regional market information on spunbonded polypropylene manufacturing costs, demand and capacities through 2016.

The report, “Spunbonded and Spunmelt Nonwoven Polypropylene World Capacities,
Supply/Demand and Manufacturing Economics 2006, 2012 and 2016,” provides detailed information on capacity by producer, country, line and technology and beam configuration and compares regional and global supply to demand. The report is of value to companies at all levels of the spunbonded polypropylene value chain to enhance their understanding of capacities, comparative producer costs and regional and global supply/demand. The report is available for immediate delivery in hard copy or electronic PDF.

Since the companies last report in 2011, four additional high output production lines have joined the 23 described in the previous report, all of which will be commissioned around the world during 2012-2014.

Together, the nameplate capacities of these lines total more than 500,000 tons. These lines will serve growing demand in emerging and developed markets, increase the availability of light weight, high strength spunbonded and spunmelt nonwovens and enhance the cost-of-manufacture position of producers. This large increment of capacity will affect regional capacity utilization and challenge the continued operation of early generation technology.

The report provides a detailed forecast and analysis of supply, demand and machine utilization each year from 2011-2016 in each global region, including Southern Asia (India). Demand for polypropylene spunbonded nonwovens is growing at attractive rates. Hygiene demand continues to dominate consumption in this technology segment but growth has slowed in developed and some other markets in 2012.

Positioning of new plants in India, Northern Africa, China, Asia-Pacific and Indonesia signify growth in these locations. Several major factors influence producer profitability around the world, including volatile raw material costs, supply/demand imbalances, increasing use of modern, low-cost technology, emergence of new global and regional producers, shifts in merchant market versus captive demand, producer consolidation and restructuring. Many spunbonded polypropylene producers struggle with profitability, while others are performing well. In some regions, capacity rationalization has occurred as new technology is commissioned. Modern, high output lines have been and will continue to be installed, which will take share from older, less productive units, placing increased pressure on existing producers operating older technology to remain cost-competitive.

The Price Hanna Consultants study provides significant new findings on the following topics:

• Perspective on regional and global capacity and demand development from 2006 to 2012 and an updated forecast for each year through 2016.

• Estimates of imports and exports by region and their impact on regional capacity utilization and capacity planning.

• Analysis of regional capacity capable of supplying modern hygiene end uses by individual machine and in total by producer and region as compared to regional demand.

• Cost-of-manufacture estimates for leading regional low cost producers using the latest generation technology based on estimates of August 2012 polypropylene costs.